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A review by markyon
The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein
3.0
Here’s my latest re-read of Heinlein’s works.
By 1952 we’re well into the so-called Heinlein juveniles – books published that were written by Heinlein predominantly for teenage Boy Scouts. After Between Planets, Heinlein was clearly on a roll, and in demand. The Introduction to this edition, written by Heinlein biographer William H Patterson, talks of his books selling well, and his movie Destination Moon doing quite well, though his work for TV series Tom Corbett Space Cadet had left him rather unimpressed with the business. Using the Hollywood machine for inspiration, and a suggestion by his new wife Virginia Heinlein to write about a pair of red-headed twins, The Rolling Stones was written.
Reading Heinlein’s books in (mainly) chronological order for the first time, I am now picking up more of Heinlein’s evolution as a writer. At this point he has become more confident and has begun to develop and reinforce what many would consider ‘the Heinlein voice’. His dialogue has become lively and energetic. His characters have now started to settle into what would become a Heinlein archetype – bright and intelligent, which at times shows that ‘hectoring and lecturing’ that would be apparent in his later work.
The Rolling Stones is a story like Between Planets that takes place on a wider canvas – this time, it’s Luna, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, around Saturn – but whereas previous tales have focused around one key character, this time the plot is predominantly about a family.
And that’s something I found a tad annoying. It’s strange how my view on this one has changed. I quite happily read this in the 1980’s, without any question of the family dynamic. Now, thirty-odd years later, I find the family setup distinctly trying. We have matriarchal Hazel Stone, grandmother of the family, who seems to rule the roost without question; father Roger, who appears to dampen the annoying overenthusiasm of the younger members of the family by regularly resorting to the ‘I’m the captain of this ship and don’t you forget it’ card, mother Edith, super-mother and doctor, poor put-upon Meade who seems to spend a lot of her time looking after supposedly cute youngster Lowell aka ‘Buster’. (Really!) Lastly we have super-twins Castor and Pollux, two quite irritating but clearly intelligent teenagers who seem to be a prototype for Donald Trump. I found the point that, according to Patterson’s introduction, these two characters were created based on an idea from Heinlein’s new wife, Virginia, rather an issue, and makes me a little concerned with what was to follow in Heinlein’s future work.
So this one didn’t start too well for me. Initial impressions are that the characters, which are the centre of the novel, are bright, overenthusiastic and, most of all, just plain annoying. This does improve a little as the novel continues, although it was a major issue for me. These are the first characters in my reread I’ve not quickly got to like.
Heinlein is trying to develop his writing repertoire here, using his scriptwriting chops from his experiences on film and television. Much of the book, more than previous, it seems – is dialogue based. There has always been speech in a Heinlein novel, but here the difference is that where before the voice was often focused around one character, here Heinlein tries to give all the different elements a distinct and separate voice. This creates what we now regard with successive usage as the rather typical Heinlein ‘snappy dialogue’, but can at times become just too much.
There’s also a lot of technical info-dump here. The Heinleins – Robert and Virginia – spent a lot of time working on this element, trying to get the technical parts right so that readers would get a realistic impression as to what future pioneers would have to do to travel in space in the 1950’s. From the perspective of the 21st century, my view was that such mathematical details were dull and bored the reader. These days, the computer would do it: end of story.
For all my gripes, we have here characters that Heinlein will keep returning to in the future. He has used similar archetypes in the past, too – the family of Jim Marlow on Red Planet isn’t that different – but here, the templates are given full rein.
These templates also apply to the aliens in Heinlein’s universe too. Whereas before we had the lovable Willis (Red Planet), and the charming Sir Isaac Newton (Between Planets), this time around we have the flat cats – proto-Tribble-like creatures who are bought as a pet but rapidly take over the spaceship. It is perhaps no surprise that it is a flat cat embossed on the front cover of this edition, admittedly with two eyes rather than the three it should have. They are, I’m pleased to say, one of the parts of the book that is still quite endearing, although at the time they were a little controversial. According to Patterson’s Introduction, the asexual nature of the rapidly breeding flat cats caused major disagreements between Heinlein and his editor, Miss Dalgliesh. It was felt that they would cause librarians (a major influence on book sales at this time) some upset.
Heinlein’s view of the Solar System as something to be colonised is still prevalent here. Much of the book echoes the expansion of the American West, deliberately so. The frontier-like Asteroid Belt as well as the over-commercialised and rather expensive Mars (I wonder what Jim Marlow and Willis of Red Planet might think?) show us an expansion out towards the stars. It is rather ironic (though no doubt deliberate) that at one point Hazel spends her time in a Western-type drawl, and carrying what she actually refers to as ‘a sidearm’.
The other side of the tale is that Heinlein tries to show the reader how complicated – not to say downright dangerous – future space travel could be. Space Family Stone spends a lot of time talking mathematics, showing us how communication could be achieved, and warning of potential dangers such as the transmission of disease. We have reached beyond Earth out into the Solar System, but it is not an easy passage. As a doctor, Edith Stone is in constant demand out on the frontier, which rather keeps her out of the way for much of the plot and allows Hazel to take full rein.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Clearly what I found entertaining as a teenager is much less so in my middle age. Out of all the books I’ve read to date in this series, this is the one that has (so far) dated worst.
Part of this may be that the book is regarded as Heinlein’s first foray into a lighter, more humorous book. Humour, as often said before, is notoriously tricky to get right and intensely personal, so that what one person will find hilarious will leave another cold. I did find it amusing when younger, but now find it staged and clichéd. C’est la vie. The ending is surprisingly weak, reminiscent of the ending of a television episode, ‘to be continued’ – though there are brief glimpses in later books. Hazel Stone, for example, is referred to as one of the key members in the revolution of Luna in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and is in To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Lowell/Buster Stone appears in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Castor and Pollux are in The Number of the Beast (but then, most of Heinlein’s characters are there at some point.) It is obvious that Heinlein himself thinks a lot of these people.
Admittedly, I may be a little out of step with this one. At its time of publication Space Family Stone was well received. According to Wikipedia, Groff Conklin described the novel as “a thoroughly delightful job”. Boucher and McComas praised it as “easily the most plausible, carefully detailed picture of an interplanetary future we will encounter in any year”. P. Schuyler Miller cited the novel’s “freshness and simplicity,” characterizing it as “a life-size portrait-gallery of real people living in a real world of the future, every detail of which fits into place with top-tolerance precision”.
For me, there are parts that are good here, and parts that I think have dated badly, and after the complexity and intensity of Between Planets, The Rolling Stones is a bit of a disappointment. There are parts I enjoyed, but in the end it was a bit of a mixed bag. Whilst I have to applaud Heinlein for trying to push himself with this one, it left me with an enduring impression of ‘tried hard, can do better’.
By 1952 we’re well into the so-called Heinlein juveniles – books published that were written by Heinlein predominantly for teenage Boy Scouts. After Between Planets, Heinlein was clearly on a roll, and in demand. The Introduction to this edition, written by Heinlein biographer William H Patterson, talks of his books selling well, and his movie Destination Moon doing quite well, though his work for TV series Tom Corbett Space Cadet had left him rather unimpressed with the business. Using the Hollywood machine for inspiration, and a suggestion by his new wife Virginia Heinlein to write about a pair of red-headed twins, The Rolling Stones was written.
Reading Heinlein’s books in (mainly) chronological order for the first time, I am now picking up more of Heinlein’s evolution as a writer. At this point he has become more confident and has begun to develop and reinforce what many would consider ‘the Heinlein voice’. His dialogue has become lively and energetic. His characters have now started to settle into what would become a Heinlein archetype – bright and intelligent, which at times shows that ‘hectoring and lecturing’ that would be apparent in his later work.
The Rolling Stones is a story like Between Planets that takes place on a wider canvas – this time, it’s Luna, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, around Saturn – but whereas previous tales have focused around one key character, this time the plot is predominantly about a family.
And that’s something I found a tad annoying. It’s strange how my view on this one has changed. I quite happily read this in the 1980’s, without any question of the family dynamic. Now, thirty-odd years later, I find the family setup distinctly trying. We have matriarchal Hazel Stone, grandmother of the family, who seems to rule the roost without question; father Roger, who appears to dampen the annoying overenthusiasm of the younger members of the family by regularly resorting to the ‘I’m the captain of this ship and don’t you forget it’ card, mother Edith, super-mother and doctor, poor put-upon Meade who seems to spend a lot of her time looking after supposedly cute youngster Lowell aka ‘Buster’. (Really!) Lastly we have super-twins Castor and Pollux, two quite irritating but clearly intelligent teenagers who seem to be a prototype for Donald Trump. I found the point that, according to Patterson’s introduction, these two characters were created based on an idea from Heinlein’s new wife, Virginia, rather an issue, and makes me a little concerned with what was to follow in Heinlein’s future work.
So this one didn’t start too well for me. Initial impressions are that the characters, which are the centre of the novel, are bright, overenthusiastic and, most of all, just plain annoying. This does improve a little as the novel continues, although it was a major issue for me. These are the first characters in my reread I’ve not quickly got to like.
Heinlein is trying to develop his writing repertoire here, using his scriptwriting chops from his experiences on film and television. Much of the book, more than previous, it seems – is dialogue based. There has always been speech in a Heinlein novel, but here the difference is that where before the voice was often focused around one character, here Heinlein tries to give all the different elements a distinct and separate voice. This creates what we now regard with successive usage as the rather typical Heinlein ‘snappy dialogue’, but can at times become just too much.
There’s also a lot of technical info-dump here. The Heinleins – Robert and Virginia – spent a lot of time working on this element, trying to get the technical parts right so that readers would get a realistic impression as to what future pioneers would have to do to travel in space in the 1950’s. From the perspective of the 21st century, my view was that such mathematical details were dull and bored the reader. These days, the computer would do it: end of story.
For all my gripes, we have here characters that Heinlein will keep returning to in the future. He has used similar archetypes in the past, too – the family of Jim Marlow on Red Planet isn’t that different – but here, the templates are given full rein.
These templates also apply to the aliens in Heinlein’s universe too. Whereas before we had the lovable Willis (Red Planet), and the charming Sir Isaac Newton (Between Planets), this time around we have the flat cats – proto-Tribble-like creatures who are bought as a pet but rapidly take over the spaceship. It is perhaps no surprise that it is a flat cat embossed on the front cover of this edition, admittedly with two eyes rather than the three it should have. They are, I’m pleased to say, one of the parts of the book that is still quite endearing, although at the time they were a little controversial. According to Patterson’s Introduction, the asexual nature of the rapidly breeding flat cats caused major disagreements between Heinlein and his editor, Miss Dalgliesh. It was felt that they would cause librarians (a major influence on book sales at this time) some upset.
Heinlein’s view of the Solar System as something to be colonised is still prevalent here. Much of the book echoes the expansion of the American West, deliberately so. The frontier-like Asteroid Belt as well as the over-commercialised and rather expensive Mars (I wonder what Jim Marlow and Willis of Red Planet might think?) show us an expansion out towards the stars. It is rather ironic (though no doubt deliberate) that at one point Hazel spends her time in a Western-type drawl, and carrying what she actually refers to as ‘a sidearm’.
The other side of the tale is that Heinlein tries to show the reader how complicated – not to say downright dangerous – future space travel could be. Space Family Stone spends a lot of time talking mathematics, showing us how communication could be achieved, and warning of potential dangers such as the transmission of disease. We have reached beyond Earth out into the Solar System, but it is not an easy passage. As a doctor, Edith Stone is in constant demand out on the frontier, which rather keeps her out of the way for much of the plot and allows Hazel to take full rein.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Clearly what I found entertaining as a teenager is much less so in my middle age. Out of all the books I’ve read to date in this series, this is the one that has (so far) dated worst.
Part of this may be that the book is regarded as Heinlein’s first foray into a lighter, more humorous book. Humour, as often said before, is notoriously tricky to get right and intensely personal, so that what one person will find hilarious will leave another cold. I did find it amusing when younger, but now find it staged and clichéd. C’est la vie. The ending is surprisingly weak, reminiscent of the ending of a television episode, ‘to be continued’ – though there are brief glimpses in later books. Hazel Stone, for example, is referred to as one of the key members in the revolution of Luna in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and is in To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Lowell/Buster Stone appears in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Castor and Pollux are in The Number of the Beast (but then, most of Heinlein’s characters are there at some point.) It is obvious that Heinlein himself thinks a lot of these people.
Admittedly, I may be a little out of step with this one. At its time of publication Space Family Stone was well received. According to Wikipedia, Groff Conklin described the novel as “a thoroughly delightful job”. Boucher and McComas praised it as “easily the most plausible, carefully detailed picture of an interplanetary future we will encounter in any year”. P. Schuyler Miller cited the novel’s “freshness and simplicity,” characterizing it as “a life-size portrait-gallery of real people living in a real world of the future, every detail of which fits into place with top-tolerance precision”.
For me, there are parts that are good here, and parts that I think have dated badly, and after the complexity and intensity of Between Planets, The Rolling Stones is a bit of a disappointment. There are parts I enjoyed, but in the end it was a bit of a mixed bag. Whilst I have to applaud Heinlein for trying to push himself with this one, it left me with an enduring impression of ‘tried hard, can do better’.